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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623259">Of Broken Boys, Bonds,  and Bottles</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabbyStarlight/pseuds/SabbyStarlight'>SabbyStarlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MacGyver (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>4x01, ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Episode Tag, Gen, dark mac</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:42:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,457</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623259</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabbyStarlight/pseuds/SabbyStarlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Quick little angsty, what if, type of tag to last night's premiere.  Because our boy is spiraling and needs someone to see it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>89</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Of Broken Boys, Bonds,  and Bottles</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Let's play the If I Wrote That Episode, What Would I Do? game, shall we?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey. It’s me.” Mac drained the last drink from the bottom of the glass bottle before adding it to the collection. The neat row, now of five empty bottles, lining the empty fire pit in front of him. “Sorry I’m calling so late. Or, well, I don’t know, might not be late where you are. It's late here. I’d actually have to know what part of the world you’re in now to figure out the time difference.” It might have been the alcohol buzz, or maybe simply the events of the day, but he didn't bother to hide the anger in his voice.</p><p> </p><p>He pressed the phone tighter between his ear and his tense shoulder, using both hands to pop the top off the last beer in the six-pack he had brought outside. "Two years, man. You realize that? It's been two years now, you've been gone." He took a drink, keeping the phone against his ear with his shoulder so he could pull his jacket, which had belonged to Jack before he had left it, along with his family and everything else in his apartment and in his life, behind.</p><p> </p><p>It was a cold night, at least by LA standards, and Mac was regretting his choice of drink. Thinking that he should have gone with something stronger, to warm him from the inside out. But he had walked past the liquor cabinet, heading for the fridge instead. Anything stronger might make him forget. He had considered starting a fire, when he first made his way outside, but decided against it. He deserved to be cold. And alone. He deserved not to forget.</p><p> </p><p>"I killed someone today, Jack." A younger him, the him from two years ago, would have let his voice crack at the admission, if thinking the words alone hadn't made him so sick he couldn't even speak them at all. Now? Nothing.</p><p> </p><p>"We needed info, and he wasn't feeling chatty. So you know what I did?" A harsh laugh bubbled out from his chest as he remembered the absurdity of the moment. "I grabbed the nearest container of Nitrogen gas, some odds and ends, and made a gas mask to use on the poor bastard. Worked like a charm, too. I knew it would. I have first hand experience knowing how much that sucks, after all. You remember Mexico, don't you? I do. That was the first time an op went south and you weren't there to have my back. Showed up just in time though, didn't you?" Another laugh croaked out and he washed away the bitter traces of it with another swig of beer. "Wish you would have been there this time. Cause the guy who was there? Who said he had my back? He didn't stop me. And things went bad."</p><p> </p><p>Memories of the former agent's last breaths came flooding back, Matty's voice overlaying them on an endless loop. <em>He was you, Mac.</em></p><p> </p><p>"I guess I screwed it up, I don't know." Mac shrugged, downing another drink. "Mixed something wrong, got the dose too high, maybe something was just mislabeled. Doesn't matter. Same end result. He died. I killed him. All those nightmares, the times I fought Medical to keep an Oxygen mask off me, the flashbacks? I passed that right on down to him. Except he doesn't have to deal with it now, cause he died. Maybe I did him a favor with that one. It sucks, living with that. Though I haven't had any issues with it for a while. Haven't felt that panic. Haven't felt much of anything though, to be honest with you. 'Cept lonely."</p><p> </p><p>He finished the last of the beer, adding it to the line. The neat little row of bottles, like soldiers, standing at attention, waiting. He couldn't decide if they were waiting for orders or waiting for their freedom. He hoped it was orders. A mission. A purpose. Freedom wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He had figured that one out the hard way. "Come to think of it, it's been about two years." He couldn't manage a laugh this time. Couldn't even pretend it was funny. "Wonder why."</p><p> </p><p>"Anyway," he sighed, pulling his jacket tighter around him. And it was his now, he had decided. If Jack didn't like it he could come back and take it from him. If he cared all that much, loved it as much as he made it seem, he should have taken it with him to begin with. "I don't even know why I called. Wasn't expecting you to pick up. I just… I don't know. You're the one I talk this stuff out with. Or, at least, you were. Just thought you might wanna know. I killed someone today, Jack. And honestly? I don't feel a damn thing."</p><p> </p><p>He ended the message, hanging up the call and slamming the quiet phone down on the bench beside him. "Not a damn thing." He whispered to the line of bottle soldiers. Acting on a sudden whim, probably fueled by the contents of those very bottles, if Mac was being honest, he leaned forward and one by one, threw the bottles into the fire pit. Glass shattered, pinging against charred wood remnants, burnt memories of happier times. Of a family.</p><p> </p><p>Once they were gone, all of the bottles nothing more than sharp, jagged shards, Mac's eyes landed on the cardboard carrier at his feet. Bright, cheerful colors on the outside, carefully disguising the dark inner layer. It was empty now. Alone. On its own. But it had once had a purpose. A job. It had kept those bottles, now scattered and broken, whole. Kept them together, all of them, safe and sound, wrapped in it's protection. It had been home.</p><p> </p><p>He threw it unceremoniously into the fire pit too. At least it's charges wouldn't have to go out on their own. It would go up in flames with them. He took the shiny silver lighter out of his jacket pocket, where he had found it right after he left his own on the coat rack in Jack's apartment, taking a different one instead, and set fire to a piece of newspaper he always kept in the kindling box beneath the bench. He tossed it into the center of the pit, watching the flames spread over the carrier and the bottle shards. At least they got to go up in flames together.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You go kaboom, I go kaboom.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The familiar words he had once taken comfort in haunted him as he went back inside, leaving his phone, still silent, standing guard over the fire he had started.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>~M~</strong>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jack scratched a hand through his beard as he listened to the message for the third time, blinking up at the water-stained ceiling of the empty house he and his team had commandeered.</p><p> </p><p>He didn't know why he was hesitating. His mind was made up. It had been before he had even listened to the message through the first time around. Pocketing his phone, cutting off his partner's, if he was even still allowed to call Mac that, voice before he was even finished speaking, and storming into the room that had been serving as their main operating base for the past few weeks.</p><p> </p><p>"Forty-eight." He announced, slamming the door open and startling the man, his second-in-command, sitting at the makeshift desk.</p><p> </p><p>"Forty-eight what, Dalton?" He asked with a sigh, looking back down at the map he was studying.</p><p> </p><p>"Forty-eight hours," Jack elaborated, the words sounding more right than anything had in a long time. In about two years. "We man up, take this son of a bitch out, in that time, or we're done."</p><p> </p><p>"Not possible and you know it."</p><p> </p><p>"Okay then," There was a newfound steel in Jack's voice that had the other man looking up as Jack started talking again. "Let me rephrase that. Y'all can keep doing whatever you want. I wish you luck, I really do. I hope you get him and I hope he suffers. But after forty-eight? I'm out."</p><p> </p><p>"This is your taskforce," he was reminded. "Your responsibility."</p><p> </p><p>"Not anymore it ain't," Jack shook his head, knowing he was making the right choice. "My responsibility is spiraling out back in California. I shouldn't have left him in the first place."</p><p> </p><p>He turned on his heel, not giving anyone, be it his second-in-command or any of the other taskforce members who had gathered at the raised voices coming through the walls, a chance to argue. He was going home. Forget saving the world, he had a kid to save. A kid that he had, somehow, forgotten was at one point in time, his whole world. And he was getting that back, starting now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In all honesty, that episode could have been a lot worse.  I was prepared for it to be.  And while there were parts that didn't sit quite right with me, I could overlook them all but Mac jumping right in with that Nitrogen torture plan.  And if the guy was gonna die anyway, I think the writers missed out on a great opportunity for some character development.  And, since it's me, and I'm stupidly optimistic, I had to give it a hopeful ending.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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